Originally published 2021-02-24.
On the morning of Sunday 21 February 2021, a 26-year-old Afghan woman who was about eight months pregnant set fire to herself and her tent in the temporary Kara Tepe camp on the Greek island of Lesbos. Other residents, police and firefighters put out the flames. She survived with burns and was later charged with arson. Greek authorities said she had been in deep distress after her planned move to Germany was stopped at the last minute because of her pregnancy.
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What happened in the camp
According to Greek City Times, which reported the incident four days later, fellow asylum seekers were the first to react, followed by police and the fire brigade. The woman, a mother of two, was taken to the general hospital in Mytilene, the island’s main town. Firefighters guarded her room while the case was prepared.
The New Arab, citing Greek authorities, reported that before lighting the fire she had placed her two children outside the tent. She suffered burns to her head, hands and feet, and found it hard to speak when she gave her statement in hospital. A medical examination found that she was struggling with serious psychological problems.
Why her move to Germany was halted
Germany had agreed to take in a number of recognised refugees from the Greek islands after the Moria fire. The woman was due to travel with a group of other camp residents. Doctors, however, were worried about flying so late in pregnancy, and she was taken off the transfer list.
She told officials that being turned away at the final step had left her traumatised. For people who have waited months or years in tents, a cancelled departure can feel like the door closing for good, even when the delay is meant to be temporary.
The arson charges
Prosecutors charged her with arson and with destroying public property, since the tent and its contents belonged to the camp. She appeared before investigating magistrate Nikos Triantafyllos, who allowed her to stay free but barred her from leaving Greece until trial. That meant the Germany transfer was now blocked by the court case as well.
Her lawyer, Teresa Volakaki, and even the prosecutors described the act as one of desperation. The magistrate said she was full of remorse. Her baby was due within days.
The case drew criticism from refugee advocates, who argued that charging a pregnant woman in crisis treated a mental health emergency as a crime. Greek law, like that of many countries, treats setting a fire in a crowded camp as dangerous to others, whatever the motive, so the charge followed almost automatically.
Life on Lesbos after the Moria fire
Kara Tepe was itself an emergency answer to an earlier disaster. Moria, the island’s main reception centre, was built for about 3,000 people but held close to 20,000 in 2020, thousands of them children. On the night of 8 September 2020 fires destroyed it, leaving more than 12,000 people sleeping by the roadside.
The Greek government said residents set the fires in protest at a COVID-19 lockdown, and several young Afghan men were later convicted of arson. Their lawyers argued the trial was flawed, and an investigation by the research group Forensic Architecture concluded that the fire was more likely caused by makeshift electrical wiring and spread by wind. The cause remains disputed.
The replacement camp was put up quickly on a former army firing range by the sea. Over the winter of 2020–21, aid groups reported tents flooding in storms, limited hot water and concerns about lead in the soil. About 6,000 people were living there at the time of the incident.
The mental health toll on the islands
Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) ran a clinic near the camps and repeatedly warned of rising self-harm, including among children. Its child psychologist Katrine Glatz Brubakk described families worn down by years of uncertainty. Speaking to the Morning Star, she said people had “lost hope that they will ever be treated with dignity”.
Research on asylum seekers in long-term camps points the same way: prolonged waiting, insecurity and crowded living are strongly linked to depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress. Pregnancy adds physical and emotional pressure, and access to mental health care in island camps was very limited.
Greece’s place in Europe’s refugee story
Greece became the main gateway into the European Union in 2015, when about a million people crossed from Turkey, many of them fleeing the war in Syria. Arrivals fell sharply after the 2016 EU–Turkey deal, but spiked again at times, including in early 2020 when Turkey said it would no longer stop people heading for the Greek border.
In early 2021, UNHCR data showed that Greece was hosting more than 50,000 refugees and asylum seekers. EU states had promised to share responsibility through relocation schemes, yet in practice only a few thousand people were moved from the islands each year.
Lesbos itself has paid a price too. Island residents, who welcomed many arrivals in 2015, grew frustrated as the camps became semi-permanent, and tensions with both migrants and aid workers rose in 2020.
The woman at the centre of this story was one of the lucky ones on paper: she had a place in Germany. Her case shows how fragile that luck can be when a long process depends on one flight, one medical note and one decision taken at the last moment.
Sources: Greek City Times, 25 February 2021; The New Arab, 28 February 2021: pregnant refugee charged with arson; Wikipedia: Moria refugee camp; UNHCR operational data portal: Greece; Morning Star: interview with MSF psychologist Katrine Glatz Brubakk.
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